 I think ComStrat is important because the public relies on us for timely and accurate and truthful information and it's our responsibility to meet that expectation. We as ComStrat and myself personally as a ComStrat officer support the Marine Corps as a warfighting organization. It ultimately boils down to the information environment and us being able to articulate ourselves through it as we often find ourselves in situations around the globe that are highly visible. One to the American people, two to our adversaries and we have to be able to speak to those things and when it comes to communication just like anywhere else in your life communication is vitally important and us being as transparent as a service as possible to build and gain and maintain that trust in our peers and in the American people is extremely important because without their support we wouldn't be able to do the things that we do. We wouldn't be able to go throughout the world and train with other countries, other nations and giving them something to see and us giving them that insight into what we do and how we do it. It ultimately builds that trust nationally, internationally across the board. Why is ComStrat important? ComStrat is important because we place the command, the Marines, the infrastructure, the Marine Corps in the best light possible. We inform our stakeholders, our Marines, our family members, lawmakers, policymakers all about the Marine Corps, our initiatives, our policies, our changes and that sort of communication doesn't just happen. It's done intently, it's done through strategically communicating. The ComStrat officer is a staff officer. What does a staff officer do? Well, a staff officer works with the staff to accomplish missions. So a staff officer, it's not about relationships, it's all about relationships and you're going to have to work as a team to communicate all these new initiatives. That's what a ComStrat officer does. In my experience if I could give advice to anyone who wants to be a 4502 it would be to be extremely confident in everything you do and also be completely competent in your job even though you're constantly learning something new every day. ComStrat is a top heavy command so you need to learn how to properly advise your commanders of what's going on. My advice to any aspiring ComStrat Marines is stay humble for two reasons. Number one, you're a staff officer. So you're going to be working with the staff and you're going to be working with subject matter experts, Marines who are doing their job, right? And your job as ComStrat officer is very important to communicate things. But remember that these Marines that you're asking to take photos of that you're asking the plan, you're asking to do communication things they're taking time out of their day to do it. And it may not be important to them. So you need to stay humble to understand what all these Marines do and you're interrupting their day. So remember to come with your hat in hand and express to them how important this is and they'll help you out. Second reason for staying humble. Your enlisted Marines are the technical experts. They are experts in photography, videography, graphic production, printing and you probably are not even though you're overseeing even though you are the release authority. So talk to your Marines. Too many ComStrat officers can get lost in the staff because you do very important things. We as ComStrat officers do very important things at very high levels but you cannot forget that you are a Marine Corps officer and you have to keep your focus on your Marines. Ask them questions. They will bring a lot of good ideas to the table. Ideas that you will need to have a successful combat strategy. I would say that I think ComStrat is really cool and also extremely important because in relation to any public affairs related MOS or just jobs in the civilian or military world ComStrat stands out because it is our job to say the truth and tell the public the truth versus other jobs they can kind of tweak or provide information or give details that aren't kind of straying from the truth but because the public trusts us to say that and to say the facts and nothing else I think that's why we are continuing our success as a Marine Corps or just as ComStrat in our community.